I got back from vacation on Tuesday evening and soon secured my pre-ordered copy of LittleBigPlanet (and got a free T-shirt too that my daughter is wearing to school today). I didn’t get much time to play it on Tuesday night, but I managed to put in some more time last night.

It’s not that fun.

I mean, it’s alright. The Sackboy is cute and all, and the levels I found online are somewhat interesting. Some of the stuff users are coming up with is quite clever. But I find the game more frustrating than anything. The jumping mechanic is very loose, and I find it hard to jump to exactly where I want. And the three levels of depth can get very frustrating too. And the levels often become a matter of missing a jump and trying it again. And I always fall off that stupid skateboard and have to walk to the end of the race. (And because the jumping mechanic is so frustrating, sometimes I miss getting on it once it’s moving in the first place.) And I complete a level only to find that I found 36% of the goodies, even though I tried really hard to find them all.

So now I’m wondering what’s wrong with me. Why do I find this game so hard to enjoy? Everybody seems to love it, why can’t I get into it? Why doesn’t anyone else have these problems? Beats me, but it’s quite annoying.

So I’m shelving the game until some friends come over. I’m sure it’ll be a lot more fun once there’s four of us playing it together. But for now, I find it more frustrating than anything.

LittleBigPlanet was recently released, and I picked up my copy yesterday. So the question of the day week is: are you going to buy LittleBigPlanet?

Vote in the sidebar as always.

Oh, and BTW, LBP does have profile support.

Last poll’s results:

Are you looking forward to home?

* Yes, I think it will immediately provide a huge benefit.: 36% (81)
* Yes, but I think it’ll need to mature.: 36% (82)
* No, but it may suprise me.: 21% (48)
* Home? Junk!: 7% (15)

Total Votes : 226

Games are usually designed around a fundamental challenge of completing objectives, whether it’s defeating enemies, building an empire, or escaping from danger. Great games engross the player in the challenge and get them hooked and poor games usually try to do this, but fail because the challenge feels too repetitive, or too frustrating, or the game just fails to draw them in.

LittleBigPlanet has that core element of challenge as a traditional platforming game but that’s really not what the game is about. The basic platforming elements are generally very easy. Merely beating the levels or getting points isn’t very satisfying by itself. The fun part about this game is discovering all the cool designs, and tricks, and ideas that go into each level. Even with the pre-packaged levels, I’m constantly surprised and amused with what I discover. And, obviously, with the user-created levels, it’s a ton of fun to see all the different concepts that people were able to execute.

Already, there are a ton of completely entertaining user levels. A good example is a level that someone recreated from the first level of the classic NES game, Super Mario Brothers. The level isn’t challenging and I definitely wouldn’t want to play a whole Mario Brothers game like that, but it was fully entertaining to play the level, and see how many little touches they were able pull off and how they did it. And that level isn’t even close to the best user level I played (Touch of Color is an easy favorite level so far).

The other fun part of this game is using the level editor itself. Most regular players probably won’t take it so far that they are making polished, prize-winning levels, but plenty of people will have a ton of fun making simpler goofy levels and just having a blast while doing it.

Most gamers remember the previous era of user-created content for games like Lode Runner, Eamon, Wolf 3D, Doom, Quake, and Marathon. One big difference between that era of user-created content and something like LittleBigPlanet is that previously, there was a big lack of professsionally made games. Today, there is just so much more content on the market and it’s so much easier for regular gamers to get. Previously, user created content generally aimed to fulfill the lack of games to play, while today, user-created content is more about providing community expression that is missing from more traditional games.

Everyone is wondering, will this game be a commercial hit? Will this title unleash tons of entertaining ideas and concepts from the community? Is this title going to start a new a new genre of gaming? No one knows, but this game delivers the most novelty we’ve seen all year and this title is clearly the first to usher in a distinctively new era of user-created game content.

The LittleBigPlanet servers are now live! Go create, share, play! The promotional codes should be working sometime tonight.

Brady Games Guide - The LittleBigPlanet Game Guide is 300+ pages, I hope it contains a lot of help on how to create levels. If not I’ll pass.

N4G.com - Apparently Target and Wal-mart have LittleBigPlanet today, maybe they didn’t get the memo, or they don’t care about the recall. I’ll check out my local stores and report back later today.

As you may have heard LittleBigPlanet has been slightly delayed. For North America it’s delayed about a week. Europe should get it on Oct 31st. But a lot of people have the game already. So why not just let the game ship on schedule and patch it?

During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused.

We will begin shipping LittleBigPlanet to retail in North America the week of October 27th. Sorry for the delay, and rest assured, we are doing everything we can to get LittleBigPlanet to you as soon as possible.

This is the message that caused it all.

LittleBigPlanet Release Update

So the other day I got a beta invite for LittleBigPlanet, a mere five days before the beta is due to end. Ah well, I shouldn’t complain. I’m getting something for nothing, right? You can read about the beta from a ton of other sources, so I won’t go into that here.

But here’s the kicker.

When you’re in a game and add another player, you can choose if you want that player to be a guest of your main profile, or if you want that player to be tied to a different profile! Yay and hurrah! So two years after the release of the PS3, I finally had a reason to add a friend to my list of PS3 users. Sure enough, when he entered the game, he could choose his own profile. So next time he plays, he can again choose that profile, and get the character he made along with the costumes and everything he unlocked. What a lovely concept! It’s something that the 360 has been doing for three years now, and it’s finally on the PS3.

So, Sony, what other games are going to support this feature?

Here’s LittleBigPlanet doing Tetris!!! Need I say more?

Darrin just wrote up a nice post about LittleBigPlanet and it’s potential, and mcloki had a great reply. So much so that I (Henning) thought it deserved its own post in case you didn’t catch it there. Here it is:

The hype and marketing [about LittleBigPlanet] will be enormous. I’ll only talk about the marketing of the product. LBP has the potential to be the poster child for the industry.

1. It’ll receive tons of press.
   Every Christmas news show will create their own level. You will see Breakfast Television LBP levels. You will se a “The View” Level, a Regis and Kelly Level. Local News shows will have their own level created. It’s a marketing dream. I’ll bet you a coke that before Christmas you will see a LBP level for the Fox NFL sports Show. Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long Sackboys. How about a downloadable Regis Sackboy. Not to your liking. How about a Jay Leno, or John Stewart Sackboy. And who is going to say anything bad about a game that they are in. 4 player View action with Barbara Walters. All the soccer Moms that bought Wii’s last year have something new, family friendly to play. Dad sees it as a way to get a Blueray player.
2. Emotional Connection.
   LBP is full of it. If Sony were to run an ad showing. dad/granddad playing with their son in creating a new level it would have something that just resonates with every dad. If Sony portrays this correctly and in the full Family positive way that it can be portrayed, they will have a monster success.
3. It can help sell the PS3.
   Play with your kids all day, Watch Blue Rays at night. The marketing aspect is going to be huge. This Christmas is going to be about choice for many households. Sony should position itself as the family choice. And I’m sure you’ll hear it on plenty of TV shows. “If I get a PS3 and LBP I can create a game with my child and have him use his imagination and creativity and I can help. What Dad is going to say that’s a bad thing? Or get him a 360 and teach him how to shoot people.” Is the above statement fair. No. But most people don’t have the level of sophistication with video games that PS3Blog readers have. So the generalization is going to stick.
4. It’s self marketing.
   When I create the PS3blognet level. Grabbing the Gravatar images of Henning and Tosh’s head and making little sackboys out of them.The mcloki level will all be text by the way. How do you buy that kind of marketing. The grassroots marketing of this are going to be huge. The user generated content is going to be better than you think. Sure some of it is going to be crummy, but the cream will rise to the top. And you will be astounded. People will stop playing Warcraft and endlessly grinding away their lives and start building and creating.

I’m looking forward to it and it will be a day one purchase for me.

Sony has some big products coming out, but I don’t think any of them has gotten such universally positive buzz as LittleBigPlanet.

The concept is grand, but often games with such ambitious concepts don’t gel into great finished games. Some of those preview videos look great, but are regular people really going to enjoy creating these levels? Will user-generated levels really be good enough to compete with the flood of high quality profressionally developed games on the market today? Are gamers really going to fall back in love playing a traditional side-scroller? Can you see a vibrant community behind this game thriving or even lasting beyond the launch window?

I’ve been rather skeptical on this in the past. When I heard this topping all the critics list, my hype alarm started ringing. The preview videos all seemed a little on the corny-side, with that annoying music, and it trying to be just a little too cutesy.

But the more they have recently shown of this title, the more it looks this game might actually become a genuine sensation. Some of the levels actually look cool, and from the brief shots of the 24-hour LittleBigPlanet GameJam, it really looks like regular people can make unique and exciting stuff.

In general, user-generated content won’t match the technical expertise or production quality of professional content, but user-generated content will be able to deliver a certain type of personality, emotion, and diversity that professional development isn’t suited for.

So, call the shot? Will this game kick off a resurgence of user-generated content? Will this take the concept beyond what we’ve seen in the past with the Doom/Marathon customization craze or Eamon modules?

This game is going to be huge, I can’t wait to start building stuff. I have a few ideas already, but I’m not telling you what.

In an interview, the LittleBigPlanet devs say that LBP, as is, isn’t possible on the 360. Why? Because of the BD drive and always-there HDD.